We don’t know if anyone still reads the BBC’s “Blether With Brian” column since the Corporation banned Scottish readers – uniquely in these islands – from posting comments on it, nor can we normally think of a reason why anyone would. It’s generally the blandest-possible summary of events people have already seen for themselves, with no effort to impart any sort of insight or analysis.

However, once in a while the understated approach yields a more profoundly powerful result than screeds of polemic, and we can think of no way to better illustrate the bizarreness of Johann Lamont’s chosen line of attack at yesterday’s First Minister’s Questions than to simply relate the events as they transpired, in the most neutral and factual manner, as the national broadcaster’s Scottish political editor does today.

Stranger still was Brian’s citation of Fat Les in support of his assertion, but other than to wistfully dwell for a moment on our long-held dream of Scottish fans repurposing the song in question with the words “Irn Bru” replacing the title, we’ll let that one pass.

Strange, I also made a now-rare visit to his blog and was surprised by the posting. Maybe he was just trolling when they had comments.

Incidentally, a local councillor (and I think this is the general Aberdeen SNP line) tells me that we “won” the election here because we got 31% 1st preference votes in Aberdeen compared to 29% for Labour. I think trying to argue we won because we got 2% more first preference votes (what about 2nd and 3rd?) despite getting two seats fewer is just about on a par with Labour trying to claim victory for managing to cling onto Glasgow. I find it difficult to criticise other parties when my own is guilty of the same crappy spin. I wish parties could just be honest.

From what I can remember, the proposed Labour policies down here in D&G were the same as the SNP’s. Still why put out your own policies, if you have any, when you can steal those of the opposition. I think this goes particularly well for Glasgow. As I recall, brain is rather dim today so I might be wrong here, the Scottish government in 2011 promised to keep the Council Tax frozen for 5 years. Mr. Matheson in his council election promises promised to keep council tax frozen for 5 years. Now in my mind this is a pure downright theft of an SNP policy, something that is working. Oh but wait a minute, hasn’t that nice Mr Matheson been fighting against council tax freezing and screaming from the roof tops that freezing the council tax doesn’t work!
Hmm!……….

This line of thinking has also been adopted by Michael Moore when he said about the Referendum consultations:

The Scottish Secretary, who wants to meet Mr Salmond “in the next few weeks”, said the fact that 19,000 replies had been received – more than six times that of Westminster’s – did not make it any more valid.
Speaking ahead of the closure of the consultation tonight at midnight, Mr Moore denied he was trying to bounce the First Minister into a deal on the referendum, and insisted there was now “consensus” on having a single question.

“It’s not about the numbers [of responses], it’s about the arguments,” he added.

Let’s all agree that Mrs Lamont won the elections and that her strategy is working just fine.

*She should continue looking as if she has sooked on a lemon;
*she should continue to ask silly questions and to refuse point blank to listen to the answers;
*she should continue to allow her sloppy research team to come up with questions which give the First Minister the opportunity, without any effort at all, to point out just how lacking in basis any of them is;
*she should continue to do what Iain and Wendy before her did, oppose for the sake of opposing without giving any consideration to the effects of the policy (inmage a Labour party that opposes council house building when there is such a shortage of rentable homes);
*she should continue to read for a script and lose her place and stutter over the words.

She’s doing just grand.

So yes, Johann, you won the elections, if just sort of missing out a bit on the arithmetic.

In politics it’s the perception that matters, not the reality. Or so goes the argument, and I think this is what the Holyrood Labor leader meant.

Now given the misrepresentation by Labour and the media in the first day or two after the election, it would be true to say that low-information voters would almost certainly get the impression that Labour had taken the SNP to the woodshed.

IT’S THE OPTICS STUPID
Seven days later, as Sadie McCludgie stood up at FQM to offer the lead-in proforma question, the trained seals behind her started clapping and making barking noises, suggesting some sort of parliamentary victory lap, a spiking of the football in the end zone, a both-hands-above-the-head, fist-pumping celebration of the rout of the SNP.

This presumably was to reinforce the perception among the Great Unwashed, that holding Glasgow with a reduced majority was an historic victory.

Labour thought this visual would be the 5 to 10 second burst that would get on the news. That sort of thing is like catnip to news producers, after all.

A good visual is more powerful than any explanatory narration, times ten, and the message of this visual is “Labour won and the SNP lost”.

Labour had clearly cooked-up this pantomime at FMQ to reinforce that meme, originally inculcated during the critical hours after the election, when the electorate was still paying attention.

Now, it’s true Labour were been unable to sustain the fiction as the days wore on, but they did not need to sustain it.

Past the first day or so, after the election, the great majority of punters had already turned their attention back to things that really matter to them. They switched off.

The impression left in their minds, if they retained any impression at all, was again, that Labour won and the SNP lost. It is the simplest of messages that is retained.

the arithmetic jiggery pokery continues…the latest being the attempts to justify overtutning the results of the referendum in aberdeen on the union terrace gardens plans. circa 15k people voted labour, circa 45k voted for the gardens. now labour claim they have a mandate as elections are a better way to run things than referenda……..dangerous line of argument that, the SNP would be entitled to declare independence right now according to the labour thinking.

Hopefully at least one outcome of this will be complacency in Labour ranks. Come the next elections, the people from Labour who could’t tear themselves away to vote will think to themselves… ‘They managed without me last time; they can do so again’. Whereas SNP supporters who think only superficially about politics will take the opposing view, ie: “We lost the last time. I must make the effort this time”.

Is he making an analogy with the UK government’s poor stance on renewables at the end?

Do you think that now the local elections are over they’re seeing the writing on the wall?

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